With a Whimper
by Unyielding Chaos
Summary: She would have to talk to him, and listen to him, and be around him, and act like he hadn’t ripped out her heart and made it vulnerable, then dropped it on the ground and left it there without even the decency to step on it. Sequel to From a Distance. R
1. The End of the World

The world was coming to an end.

For weeks, she had argued with herself about how to tell Mori about her feelings. Before that, she had argued with herself about _whether_ to tell him about her feelings. And even before that, she had spent a little while trying to convince herself that there were no feelings to tell him about. For just a moment, she had convinced herself that she was confusing her appreciation of the way he always took care of her, for some kind of attraction. But, much to her displeasure, she hadn't been able to fool herself for very long. What she was feeling was definitely real, and it wasn't just that she was glad that he was always there to protect her. She loved him. And because she couldn't handle arguing with herself about it any longer, she had told him that she loved him. And life had given her the chance to take it back, but she hadn't taken it back, and he had just walked away. And now that she had been rejected by him, she felt like arguing with herself for just a little bit longer might not have been so bad. She thought that hearing him say 'no' would be better than having to go through another week, or another month, or another lifetime of not knowing. But then, she still didn't know if that would have been better, because he didn't even say 'no'. He'd just walked away. He hadn't even offered her the courtesy of telling her that the feeling wasn't mutual, or saying that they should just stay friends. Jerk.

But of course, that was one of the problems, wasn't it? One of the reasons why she was so upset was because Mori was _not_ a jerk. If he was, she wouldn't even have this problem. Because if he was mean, she wouldn't have been attracted to him in the first place, and she wouldn't have had to go through that kind of rejection. If you could even call it that. But of course, you really couldn't. Rejection implied that he would have actually told her that he didn't think of her that way, which he hadn't done. And she was sure that having her feelings denied would have been a million times less painful than having them completely ignored. Twice.

But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that now she would still have to see him every day after school at the host club, where she would have to pretend that everything was okay. She was going to have to look at him as if he was just her friend, and not somebody who hadn't even had the graciousness to refuse her. She would have to talk to him, and listen to him, and be around him, and act like he hadn't ripped out her heart and made it vulnerable, then dropped it on the ground and left it there without even the decency to step on it. She was going to have to pretend that the last two nights hadn't happened, and that meant that the world was coming to an end.

Haruhi's world was, anyways.

The world was coming to an end, but it wouldn't even explode. It wouldn't be hit by an asteroid or be engulfed in flames or even have the class to be flooded. It would end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Haruhi couldn't even whimper. No one could know. To admit to Mori that she had feelings for him was torture enough. She was fairly certain that she couldn't bear to inform the rest of the host club, even if it wasn't verbally. On top of that, she was absolutely sure that she could not take having them know that the feelings weren't mutual and that he had quietly broken her heart.

And so, Haruhi Fujioka did her best to contain the limitless hurt and frustration of an entire world ending within the painfully limited confines of her heart, and opened the door to the third music room and an afternoon of inevitable torment.

"Haru-chan!" It was the unmistakable voice of the host club's minute senior student, who jumped at her from out of nowhere the second she stepped into the room. "Haru-chan! Haru-chan! Do you like my hat? Isn't it cute?" he squeaked, dropping back to his feet and latching onto her arm as he stared up at her with sparkling eyes, giving her a clear view of his fedora.

"It's cute!" she said with a nod, forcing a smile at the adorable little boy clad in a tiny black suit and a hat that was clearly too big for his little head, brandishing a bunny-patterned harmonica. He must have all this rabbit merchandise custom made for him or something. Damn rich bastards.

"Haruhi! We have a costume for you, too!" She felt a familiar weight on her shoulders, and saw two identical right arms extend in front of her, pointing to a dress hanging on a doorknob to a side-room. The white satin garment featured a plunging V neckline (which would be, quite frankly, wasted on her) and a flowing skirt that reached the ground, and a pair of elbow-length gloves were carefully clipped onto the shoulder straps.

"EHH?" she exclaimed, jumping backwards as if desperately terrified of the costume they had laid out for her. "What does that have anything to do with '80s era mobsters?"

"Haruhi! Your obliviousness is so cute!" cried an excited Tamaki, pouncing on her from the smoke-obscured depths of the club room, wrestling her into a reluctant embrace only for a moment before the twins pulled her back towards them, and just for a split second, she allowed nostalgia to eclipse her frustration. At the very beginning of her association with the host club, Mori had saved her from a similar ordeal with the King. It was only then that it occurred to her to look around for the tall, stoic male, but she could hardly see anything through the smoke.

Suddenly, a spotlight flashed on to her right, highlighting a sunglass-wearing Tamaki behind a grand piano as black as onyx, playing a somber accompaniment to the sorrowfully captivating saxophone piece that had been drifting through the smoky music room since she had come in.

"We're jazz artists, inviting ladies to experience the atmospheric smoky bars and soulful music of the 1940s!" he said with unnecessary enthusiasm, standing up with a flourish as the song ended. "And you, Fujioka Haruhi, are the endearing torch singer that completes us!"

She stared at him incredulously. Torch songs were musical poems of unrequited love, and it infuriated her that this was so perfectly fitting for her at this moment. "I'm not wearing that," she said matter-of-factly. There was no way she was going to wear that slinky cocktail dress, no matter what they said to try to convince her. Besides, she couldn't even sing.

That explanation was a little bit useful, though. Now she understood why the background music was a saxophone, and why Tamaki was playing the piano, and why Honey had a harmonica, and why Hikaru and Kaoru now held blues guitars, and why Kyoya, as the smoke cleared slightly, was revealed to be balancing a double bass against his shoulder. But…

"Where is Mori-senpai?" she asked offhandedly, as if it was a completely innocent inquiry. Her question was answered not by Honey, who she had expected to respond enthusiastically with a reason for the man's absence, or by any of the other visible members of the host club. Instead, it was answered by a glaringly familiar "Ah" from a source that was presently inevident.

"Senpai?" she asked, whirling around in circles frantically, searching for the person who had spoken. She didn't find him until the boy-lolita club member leapt at some unseen target, exclaiming a jubilant "Takashi!", emphasizing the first syllable in a manner that was customary for Honey-senpai's greetings.

Without waiting for another invitation, the tall, dark-haired young man stepped out into plain visibility with his cousin on his shoulders, and an alto saxophone slung over his shoulder. "Ah," he repeated, staring directly at Haruhi, his blank gray eyes seeming colder and emptier than ever, but frustratingly, they were as beautiful as they had always been.

She quickly ducked out of his sightline and was promptly attacked by the Hitachiin brothers, who seemed to be trying to forcefully pull the dress on over her uniform, and she turned to run away, but ended up being saved by Kyoya, who held a garment bag out in front of him, hindering her progress into the shadowy sections of the club room. "Your costume," he said knowingly as she took the bag from him and began to make her way to where she could change.

Understandably, the suit (which matched almost exactly with everybody else's) in the bag inspired a more pleasant sort of enthusiasm within her, and she put it on without any argument. "So, I get why Tamaki has a real piano." The host club's King was a good piano player. It made sense for him to play the instrument for customers to add to the atmosphere of the cosplay. "But why waste the money on real instruments for everybody else?" She was sure that there must be somewhere to find relatively convincing models of these instruments that would be much less expensive than buying the actual ones. "It must be easy to find imitations of guitars and standing basses, so why bother paying full price for high-quality instruments that you're only going to use once? And for Mori-senpai, a toy saxophone would be good enough for this one event." It wasn't as if they were ever going to pull them out and reuse them or anything, so why pay thousands of dollars for things that they would never even look at again after this?

The twins and Tamaki stared at her as if she was speaking unacceptable nonsense, their eyes wide and their jaws on the floor. The King seemed like he was going to say something, but Kyoya beat him to the punch. "Our customers pay to see club members in costumes that are well-put together. If we started to do cheap things like that, they'd have less interest in buying the photo collections, and the sales of the photo collections, and other merchandise, are the primary source of the club's funding. So, by doing such petty things to save money, we'd actually be losing money."

Damn rich bastards.

"Besides-" He started to continue, but Honey bounced in and interrupted.

"Takashi plays the saxophone!" he announced cheerfully before hopping back up onto his cousin's back.

What? Since when did Mori play an instrument? She heard the usual "Ah", and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Really, Honey-senpai?"

"Hai!" squeaked the senior, and Haruhi forced herself not to look in his direction for too long, because whenever she looked at him, she couldn't help but look at Mori, too.

"Didn't you hear him?" asked Hikaru skeptically. "He was playing when you came in," Kaoru added.

She jumped up in surprise as she realized what they meant. "What? That was him? I thought that was a background track!"

"No," said the entire club in faintly uneven unison.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, until…

"Takashi!" exclaimed the short, harmonica-wielding, bunny-clutching club member, seeming to remind everybody else to get back to what they were doing and quit standing there doing nothing. "Come eat cake with me!"

"Ah."

"Haru-chan! Come eat cake with us!"

"Oh, I don't-"

"We want you to eat cake with us! Right, Takashi?"

There was a short pause.

"Ah."

She reluctantly followed them to a booth that had been set up in the third music room expressly for this occasion, and had already been equipped with enough different kinds of cakes to ensure the tiny senior's satisfaction. She slid into one side, and Honey and Mori sat together across from her.

"What kind of cake do you want, Haru-chan? There's a chocolate one, and a strawberry-"

"I'll have whatever kind you're having, Honey-senpai," she said, forcing a smile for the sake of the excited little boy within the eighteen year old sitting across from her.

"Hai!" he enthused, delivering a slice of chocolate cake to each of the three sitting in the booth. He consumed his in a timely manner and quickly cut himself another slice, but Haruhi and Mori took their time, both rather disinterested in the sweets in front of them.

"You seem odd, Takashi," he said once he was into his third piece of cake. He knew that Haruhi didn't care much for sweets, so it probably wasn't too surprising that she hadn't finished hers yet, but Mori always humoured him long enough to have at least one slice of cake with his cousin.

"Oh."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"Are you mad at Haru-chan?"

There was another pause.

"No."

Haruhi stifled a sigh as she swallowed a forkful of chocolate cake. Should she be relieved to hear that? Was it wrong that she hadn't even considered the possibility that he might be angry with her? But, she hadn't done anything wrong, had she? If anything, she should be angry with him, for ignoring her the way he had. She wasn't mad, though, she was just sad. And she supposed it was a good thing that he wasn't mad, either, but it didn't make her feel any better. Because she really didn't care if he was mad or not. She just wanted to hear him say that he was sorry.


	2. Selfish and Unimportant

"_Mori-senpai, I love you."_

_Hearing it for the second time, it became truer still, as did the pain and fear that came with it. Rain rolled like teardrops down his tough, stony features, and he stood there, trying to swallow the desire to respond in the selfish manner that would only end in his misery. But in the end, he failed to contain his self-serving wishes, and he reached out to her, closing the gap between them as he held her in his arms. He felt the reassuring sensation of hands on his back, and gently lifted her off her feet in his troubled enthusiasm. He knew that he would end up lonely because of this, but it was worth it for whatever time he would have with her between now and then. It had to be. He tried to imagine how he would feel when it ended and she was taken away from him, but he decided that no matter how horrible that feeling was, it couldn't be any more painful than this feeling was blissful. So he allowed himself this guilty pleasure, wholly aware of his impending doom. He held her head in his hand, absently running his fingers through her wet hair._

"_Ah." He couldn't bring himself to say the words that would more clearly express his feelings. It seemed like it would be cursing himself to say it so directly. But however often he'd used the same word to express sentiments that were completely separate and unrelated to this, and however impersonal it seemed, that quiet, simple response was alarmingly heartfelt. He knew what it meant, she knew what it meant, and it didn't matter if the significance was indistinguishable to everybody else in the world. Because nobody else mattered. And at that moment, nobody else existed. Because at that moment, the single most important thing to him was making sure she knew that he loved her, even if he didn't say it the same way she did. The raindrops on his face confused themselves with the tears that he had been unable to keep himself from shedding, out of overwhelming fear, joy, confusion, relief, but ultimately… satisfaction._

_-Edited Memory Due to Wishful Hindsight-_

He silently scolded himself for questioning his previous decision. It _had_ been a _decision_, after all. Nobody had forced him to walk away. He alone had told himself to hold back out of anticipation of his own pain. And he knew that he was right to do so, and he shouldn't allow himself to regret doing what was right. Besides, no matter how hard he reluctantly wished to change what had happened, he couldn't change it. He had walked away. And if nothing else, this was what he got for walking away. Not being with her was his punishment for refusing to be with her.

The moment that that thought occurred to him, he immediately wished it hadn't. He didn't want to think of not being with her as a punishment. For one thing, he needed to move on and accept that he could never have her, and for another thing, it was a selfish thought. It was the reason he was so troubled. By liking her- by _loving_ her- by being loved _by_ her, he was denying the other club members- his competition- the opportunity to pursue her. Selfish. And besides that, he was setting himself up to get hurt, just for the sake of momentary pleasure. Selfish. Selfish and irrational. But then, wasn't it also selfish to deny both Haruhi and himself the opportunity to be together, just for the sake of saving himself from pain in the future? No matter what he did, it was a selfish thing to do, and thinking back on it, he would have rather chosen the option that made him and Haruhi happy, than the one that made the rest of the host club happy, and kept everything the way that he knew very well that it should be. And that was more selfish than anything else.

For that he needed to be punished.

--

I wish I understood how Takashi was feeling. I wish I knew what he was thinking about. Normally, he tells me these things, even if not necessarily out loud. Usually, he lets me know. He lets me see what's bothering him. He always answers my questions about his feelings when I ask him, because he would never lie to me, or ignore me, and he always makes it so that I know exactly what to ask, but also so that _only_ I know what to ask. And I like that he does it that way, because it makes me feel like I know him better. For this particular thing, even if it's just this one thing, it's something that I can understand more completely than anybody else in the world, and that's so rewarding for me. I love that he makes it that way, because he knows how happy it makes me to be able to ask exactly the right question, so that I can understand exactly what he's thinking.

But today, I didn't know what question to ask. For what I'm pretty sure was the first time, I understood how other people felt when they looked at him. It was very strange for me, because he was completely unreadable. I know that when people look at Takashi, they're always afraid of him, or confused by him, because they don't know what he's thinking or how he's feeling, because he knows how to keep them from knowing. But I've never been afraid or confused before, because he always lets me know. He knows how to let me know without letting anybody else know, and he uses that ability because he knows it makes me feel special.

He never finished his cake.

Today, at the club, he didn't let me know what he was thinking, even though he could have done it without letting Haru-chan know. There's something bothering him that he won't even let me understand, and today, for the first time, I was confused by him. I was even a little bit afraid. Not _of _him, but _for_ him. If whatever it was that was bothering him was so bad that he couldn't even let me understand, what kind of trouble could he possibly be in? But then, I was also a little afraid for myself. Because it might not be something horrible. It might just be that he didn't want me to know, even though he knows that it makes me feel important. Maybe he doesn't want me to feel important.

Am I not important to him anymore?

**A/N: **Eee! I just glanced at the published version of From a Distance, as well as chapter 1 of this story, and realized that the first lines are repeating themselves for some reason. Please don't think I'm insane and repetitive because of this! My computer just has major beef with my publishing things on FanFiction (as it does with most things), I guess. Sorry about this! I'll see if I can do anything to fix it in the later chapters, but no promises!


	3. There For Her

"Mother!"

He sighed, but did not look away from his laptop. Such a thing seemed entirely unnecessary. Usually, Tamaki's issues were entirely trivial and did not, by any means, require Kyoya's full attention. For the most part, they had something to do with making Haruhi wear something feminine, or organizing more Daddy-Haruhi time, and the host club's King almost inevitably realized somewhere along the way that he wasn't _really_ interested in Kyoya's opinion, and that he didn't _really_ need Kyoya's help with whatever it was.

This stage in the process of "helping" Tamaki was something that The Shadow King liked to call _waiting for him to figure out how to do it on his own_. The sooner he could move on to stage _being able to actually get something done around here_, the better.

It was a rather tedious process that he'd really rather if he didn't have to deal with, but the fact was that he did have to. Because Tamaki needed for somebody to pretend to listen to him while he ranted and raved about one thing or another, until he figured out how to deal with whatever was troubling him. And this person who pretended to listen, of course, had to be Kyoya, by process of elimination. Haruhi wouldn't bother even pretending to listen to him, and since the twins were more often than not part of his problem, neither of them could take on that role, Honey didn't have the attention span for it, and Tamaki would probably never be convinced that Mori was listening.

Come to think of it, Mori had been acting sort of different, lately.

It was hard to tell the difference in his moods, and it was unlikely that any of the rest of the club (excluding, perhaps, his cousin) was even aware that he had moods at all. But Kyoya knew. Kyoya always knew. He never did anything about it, but he always knew what was going on. It was just so much more entertaining to be a spectator.

But unfortunately, when it came to _why_ Mori was in any given mood at any given time, he wasn't sure if anybody possessed the skill to understand such a thing. Maybe Honey did. He suspected that nobody else ever would. But that was okay with him, because the reason that he had been upset lately was irrelevant, as long as he dealt with it before it affected the club's profits. This was the true importance of the matter.

When he heard a mention of hotel rooms, it occurred to him that what little attention he had previously been paying to Tamaki had drifted bit by bit towards the club's oldest member, and he was now completely lost as far as what Tamaki was talking about. He decided that this was probably for the best, and returned his eyes to his laptop.

"Should we stay at the same hotel as we stayed at last time?"

What was he on about now? "Yes," he said, still not completely sure what he was being asked about, but every hotel that they had stayed at since the host club had been made, had been owned and run by the Ootori family or their business partners. "So where is it that we're going?"

Tamaki stopped talking and dropped his arms, which had been up near his face as he paced around and pondered out loud the arrangements for something that Kyoya did not understand the details of. "Back to Kyoto. Haven't you been listening?"

"Partially." Not at all. "Why do you want to go back? We've already done all there is to do there."

"But we had so much fun while we were there! I'm sure everybody would love to see it again!" They had gone to Kyoto last week. He was sure that nobody would be interested in going back so soon. "But the room situations were very badly organized last time."

Now that, he had to agree with. Kyoya had been sharing a room with Tamaki.

"It was a bad idea to let Haruhi stay in the room next to those unscrupulous twins!"

"Hmm."

"So, this time, you and I will take the room in between them."

"Hmm." They weren't going back.

"Haru-chan!" Tamaki's plans were thankfully interrupted by the greeting squeal of Honey-senpai, as Haruhi walked into the room. Must she always be so late?

"Haruhi! Guess what Daddy has planned for us this weekend!" chirped an enthusiastic (overly so, since the thing that he was excited about wasn't actually going to happen) Tamaki as he rushed over to the girl who walked in. "We're going to Kyoto again! Won't that be great?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Kyoya saw that Mori had gone stiff, and Haruhi's eyes darted towards him just for a second, before she dropped them to the floor. "No."

And suddenly he understood.

--

Mitsukuni was the only one who seemed genuinely excited about this news. His eyes widened in childlike wonder, and it would almost make somebody think that he _hadn't_ been in Kyoto just four days earlier. He floated about animatedly as if he was imagining what it was like in Kyoto, as if he hadn't seen it all before.

"We aren't going." said Kyoya plainly, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "We went last weekend, and I'm not going to waste more money on something that is completely pointless." He turned back to his laptop to indicate that the discussion was over, but Mori supposed that it was also so that he couldn't see Tamaki's puppy eyes.

"Mom! You said we could go!"

"I was unaware of this."

Tamaki slumped off towards his corner dejectedly, pouting all the way there. Although he didn't enjoy seeing the host club's King so upset, he was glad that he hadn't gotten his way in this particular instance. Mori did not want to go back to Kyoto any time soon, _especially_ not with the host club. Especially not with Haruhi. That would just bring back memories that he was having a hard enough time ignoring without Tamaki suggesting that they go back to the scene of the crime a week later.

Well, in reality, there was no way that he could ever really ignore the memories whether they went back to Kyoto or not, but it would still be awkward. Even more awkward than it was anyways. By not speaking, or expressing his emotions, Mori gave himself the luxury of being able to appear completely comfortable no matter what kind of situation he was in. But, much to his displeasure, he was often much less comfortable than he seemed to be.

Besides, there was really no point in going back, even if one were to look past the emotional distress that it would create for Mori. They had been there last week, and they had seen everything they needed to see, so there would be nothing to really do if they went again this weekend. Nothing, besides avoid Haruhi in every way, shape, and form.

And that, he was doing a perfectly fine job of from here.

"I'd rather stay here anyway. I need to study," explained Haruhi as she settled down into one of the chairs and opened a textbook.

"Mother!" whined Tamaki, clearly upset that he hadn't gotten any attention since retreating to his corner. "Your daughter studies too much!"

When the King wasn't happy with what Haruhi was doing, she was Kyoya's daughter, but when the twins were "sexually harassing" her, Tamaki was Daddy. There were times when she belonged to both of them, but Mori had yet to figure out the variable that made it so.

Mommy wasn't listening. Daddy was feeling ignored. Haruhi kept studying. Mori pretended not to be watching her. Honey served himself a slice of cake.

It was as if things were starting to go back to normal.

Had they really ever not been normal? It wasn't as if he'd talked to Haruhi that much before things had happened. But for some reason, it seemed like such a chore now. Because he knew that she was still waiting for him to say something to her that he couldn't find it in him to say. And he knew very well that it would be a lot easier for both of them if he just said it. But he couldn't say it, because he couldn't lie about something this important. But at the same time, he couldn't tell her the truth because she'd find a way to talk him out of his decision, and he didn't want that. He couldn't want that.

So he said nothing, and hoped it would go away. This was his solution to everything.

It seldom worked.

"Haru-chan! Haru-chan!"

He hadn't noticed that his cousin had stood up from the table and begun to run towards the chair that Haruhi was sitting in, and before he could scold himself for being so careless, he saw Haruhi stand up as well, and turn away from the student that she didn't appear to have seen flying towards her. He latched onto her before she even saw that he was coming, and twirled around her using her neck as a pivot, and flew away from her. He watched in fear of his falling and hurting himself, and stood up in preparation to go and catch him, but the tiny senior landed gracefully on his feet, so Takashi was able to relax a little bit, but only until he saw Haruhi dizzily trying to regain her balance, step backward and trip over her other foot.

He didn't even notice himself move, but a second later, he was standing behind her, catching her by the waist and lifting her back to her feet. He thought for a moment that she might not have wanted him to touch her, but he wasn't going to apologize. He couldn't have let her fall. Saving her like this had become a reflex, and he wasn't sorry for that. Because if he wasn't there for her, who would be?

She looked up at him in surprise, and he thought for a moment or two about how to proceed, staring down at her in unreadable discomfort. Then he smiled, and reached out and ruffled her hair as he walked past her to return to Mitsukuni, who had already resumed his position at the table with the cake. The short boy giggled as his cousin sat down across from him, and smiled a mischievous grin that would have been easy for anybody except for Takashi to confuse with innocent cheerfulness. And as he swallowed another forkful of cake, Mori inclined his head as he saw that only one of his cousin's eyes was closed.


	4. Silent Vulgarity

"I want to wear a cowboy hat!" declared a motivated Honey as he looked at Tamaki's costume with pitiable envy, but nobody seemed to hear him or have any inclination to answer his request. He had taken a breath and was just about to repeat himself, when he heard a deep and memorable "Mitsukuni" inches away from his ear, and reached up to adjust the straw hat that had found its way onto his head. With a grin, he jumped onto his cousin and swung himself around to his back and eased into his often-adapted position on the tall boy's shoulders. "Yiee!" he exclaimed, clearly much happier now that he had something on his head. It worked out just as well for Takashi. He normally didn't look good in hats, and Honey had been wondering why they had given him one to begin with, especially if he, himself, did not get one. But now, Mitsukuni had a cowboy hat and Takashi did not, so all was right with the world.

"Haru-chan! Haru-chan!" In one skillful stride, he leapt away from his cousin with an uncannily powerful acceleration and landed on the female host's back just as she turned to close the door behind her. It was an unreasonably graceful journey, and by no account did it make sense that he could both take off and land so weightlessly, without harming either Mori or Haruhi. It was enough to make somebody question how he could have almost killed her last time.

Of course, that somebody thought that it was an accident.

Haninozuka Mitsukuni was not a malicious human being. You could ask anybody in the world, and they would tell you exactly the opposite (unless the one person out of several billion that you chose to ask happened to have woken him up from an afternoon nap, or brought some sort of ill fortune upon his bun-bun, but that's beside the point). Still, he had jumped onto his friend yesterday with every intention of knocking her off balance, fully intent on making her fall. But Haninozuka Mitsukuni was not a malicious human being, and he had jumped onto his friend yesterday with absolute confidence that she wasn't going to hit the ground. And he was able to have this confidence, because even if Takashi had been distant lately, even if he'd been speaking even less than usual for the last week, even if he wasn't letting Honey into his thoughts the way he usually did, _even_ if he was making every possible attempt at concealing his ever-hidden emotions, Mitsukuni was not completely naïve. He knew his cousin. This was a fact, even if Takashi happened to be trying to avoid it.

And even if he had yet to figure out exactly what it was, he knew that there was something going on between Mori and Haruhi that was making them evade each other, and act uncomfortable around each other (and in general). But no matter what sort of issue they were having, he knew that Mori cared about Haruhi, and he wouldn't have let her fall no matter what kind of argument they were in. This was the problem, you see. Honey knew that Takashi would protect Haruhi no matter what. It was the two of them that needed to be reminded.

--

She braced herself as she saw the tiny human being flying towards her. After what had happened yesterday, she wasn't about to put herself in a position to be plowed over again. For one thing, she wasn't yet sure if Mori was even there to be able to catch her (she had just walked in, you see), and for another thing, she wasn't sure if _having_ him catch her would be any better than just falling. One would think that this act of kindness on his part would go at least a small way towards making things less uncomfortable between them. This was the way that these things were meant to work, right? But as far as Haruhi was concerned, it would only make it worse.

When they were avoiding each other, at least she knew where they stood. But now she was just confused. Were they still going to try not to look at each other? Were they going to pretend that none of it had happened and go back to the way they were before Kyoto? She just had no idea how to proceed. This was the kind of thing that people needed to discuss with each other, so that they could figure out how to move forward. But she was kidding herself if she thought she could get whole sentences out of Mori, let alone opinions.

As usual, she didn't have time to regain her balance after being pounced on, before she was attacked by another of the many evils of the Host Club, this time choosing to present itself in the form of Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, brandishing an obscenely short-skirted outfit and followed by a clearly disgruntled Tamaki. "Haruhi! Look at the costume we picked for you!" they demanded in a familiarly chorale unison that was even more irritating today than it would be at any other time. Tamaki caught up to them and promptly argued, "I will not have my daughter wearing anything compiled by you two!" Just when Haruhi was about to thank her late mother for the King's presence, she was given reason not to do so. "So Daddy wants you to wear this!" And he pulled from out of nowhere an equally feminine (skimpy) little outfit and displaying it to her as if there was absolutely no reason for her not to want to wear it.

"I'm not wearing that," she said with uncannily triangular and pupil-less eyes, turning away from the three who proceeded to bicker amongst themselves about which of the two dresses she should wear. It crossed her mind to ask them if they thought the customers might suspect something if she was the only one wearing a girl's costume- _every single day_. Somewhere in the background, Honey chimed in. "I think Haruhi would look cute in either of those!" Not helping.

She glanced around the room as quickly as she could, in the hopes that nobody would notice her looking. But it was long enough to confirm that Mori was, in fact, there. How did everybody manage to get there before her every day? And have their costumes already on by the time she came in? Weird.

For once, she was glad to have the constant background noise of the argument between the twins and Tamaki, because it was something to fill the silence. Because if nobody was talking, she was painfully aware of her senpai's presence, and she was still trying to convince herself that he wasn't there.

It wasn't just that Mori didn't speak. He _was_ silence. He filled the room with presence when others didn't fill it with their speech, and that was intriguing, but at this point, she didn't want to experience it. Because when Hikaru and Kaoru and Tamaki and Kyoya and Honey, didn't say anything, they faded away from the world. And that was when it became the most apparent that Mori was there. When others disappeared with their lack of noise, Mori appeared with his silence.

And the silence, which she had so often found comforting, relaxing, enjoyable, now seemed to be more vulgar than all the screaming twins in the world.


	5. Nothing Matters

When Haruhi first entered the club room every day after school, there was a certain amount of time that was always the same, no matter what cosplay they were doing, how late she was, or how many customers she had waiting for her. Sometimes it was thirty seconds, sometimes it was fifteen minutes, but no matter how much time it was, it was always just enough to have this thing happen. And it was always the same thing, with very little change in routine.

First of all, without exception, the very first thing that she would hear when she opened the door to the third music room was a high-pitched "Haru-chan!" Sometimes, the squeal was followed up by a tackle from Honey-senpai, but sometimes the short senior chose to stay at the table and eat cake with his silent companion and their customers. There was no particular pattern or regularity when it came to whether or not her life (and even worse, her balance) was put in danger in the first few seconds of club activities, but this was irrelevant. The importance of the situation was that Honey did, every single day, greet her with his usual, cheerful "Haru-chan!" when she first stepped in. This was absolute. Every day, she heard this before anything else when she entered the club room. Without fail.

This was a good quality in the smallest of the club members. He was reliable. Dependable. Solid. There were the off days when something about him would surprise her. His age, for example, had surprised her when she first found out that he was a senior. Before she had become so well-acquainted with the host club, if she had seen Honey-senpai, she would have placed him at about eleven years old. She had been astounded when she found out that he was a karate and judo champion. And who could forget the split second when she, Tamaki and the twins had feared for their lives after spilling tea on Honey's bun-bun? Yes, there were a few occasions when the adorable senior had surprised her. But that wasn't so much being unreliable as it was having more personality facets than Haruhi had thought to consider the possibility of him having. So, even if there were some times when he would do something strange and out of the ordinary, he was still dependable and steady. This was something that he had over his much taller cousin, who didn't even display any emotions, let alone remain consistent with them. Still, the more she thought about this good quality in Honey-senpai, the more her dishonestly untailored adjectives betrayed his unique character. Because the more she thought about him as reliable, dependable, and solid, the more she thought about him as conventional, predictable and boring.

The second thing that would happen was that either Tamaki or the twins (because they were always together at this point in time. Later on, they could separate, but in the space of time that was always exactly the same, they were still "the twins") would emerge from the depths of the third music room, shouting about one thing or another. Usually, Tamaki was angry about something that those "unscrupulous twins" had said about "his daughter", but on occasion, they changed it up. Today, (and yesterday, too, for that matter) it had been the twins that presented themselves first, trying to convince her to wear an unsurprisingly revealing outfit for their country-western cosplay. Then, Tamaki came out in a rage about the nature of the outfit they had picked out for her, and presented his own argument, and his own proposal for what she wear, which was no better than the twins' selection in terms of the amount of skin it showed. This was the third thing that happened. Whether it was the host club's King or the Hitachiin brothers that came out first, the other party would not be far behind, and would always have an opinion (and this opinion was always painfully similar to that of the first party) that they were not, by any stretch of the imagination, shy about voicing. Then they would proceed to shout at each other, completely unaware that they were arguing on the same side of the debate, and the fourth thing that would inevitably happen during this time that the same thing happened every day, was that for an indefinite period of time, Haruhi's presence was forgotten, or ignored. There was always at least a few seconds, though usually more than that, when the arguing club members (and sometimes the other three as well) would completely cease to acknowledge her presence. This was convenient. Because during this time, she had the luxury of thinking.

What she thought about varied from day to day. Her thoughts could range from the elegance of the expensively-decorated club room, to what she was having for dinner, and back again. Every so often, she even listened to the argument between the twins and Tamaki, just to amuse herself. Today, she had taken it upon herself to think about Mori, as she did more often than she'd like to think she did. Unfortunately, the next thing that happened every day no matter what, was that they would stop arguing just long enough to look at her, and say something to her, and expect her to respond. But she wouldn't have been listening, because she would have been thinking, as she was today. Luckily, though, it was usually Tamaki who spoke, and he wasn't really smart enough to say anything that required a fully-conscious response. More often than not, she could say something simple without even hearing herself saying it, and he would be off to his corner and she would have time to think some more. But today, his question caught her off-guard.

"Haruhi, why don't you want to go back to Kyoto?"

What? How had they gotten from arguing over which mini-skirt she should wear, to this? How was she supposed to answer that? It wasn't as if she could say that she was afraid of mentally reliving the day that Mori had less-than-rejected her feelings for him (even though she did that no matter where she was). There was a reason she hadn't told anybody, and she had no intention of changing her mind. So she was going to have to say _Abracadabra_ and pull a pretty damn good lie out from behind Tamaki's ear. She had opened her mouth to blurt out the first thing that came to her mind and hope it saved her, when the club's godsend vice president chimed in from behind him.

"It doesn't matter, Tamaki. We aren't going and that's final. Changing Haruhi's mind won't change mine."

"Yeah, Tono. Get over it already."

She was saved! The smirk that Kyoya shot at her shouted its message just loudly enough that she could hear it speaking from across the room, but Tamaki, who stood right next to him, wouldn't even begin to register its hidden meaning. But no matter how hard she tried to hear "You're welcome" (even though she hadn't had the chance to thank him yet, but the preemptive response of such a nature was to be expected from Kyoya), the voice of reason whispered tauntingly in her ear.

_Your debt is doubled._

And the subtle hilarity of this voice provoked a chuckle that she hadn't heard from herself all week, but it was quickly erased when she looked directly at Mori for the first time since she entered the club room that day, to find that he was looking back at her.

She quickly averted her gaze, and her eyes fell upon an area of the room that had three girls sitting around a table completely empty of club members. She wondered how long her customers had been waiting for her as she walked over to them, ignoring the background noise of Tamaki screaming his disapproval at Kyoya, Hikaru and Kaoru proceeding with their usual taunting, the customers squealing at Honey's cuteness, and Mori's deafening silence.

The last one was a little harder to ignore.

"Why aren't you wearing a costume, Haruhi?"

Oh, yeah. They'd never reached a decision on what she was going to wear. Obviously, both of the outfits that had been suggested for her were out of the question, but yesterday, Kyoya had produced an alternative. That hadn't happened today, so she hadn't changed. Oh, well. "Ah, I got here late, so I didn't have time to change." She was always late.

They didn't seem satisfied with that response, but she made no move to elaborate. She had already picked up where she left off with her thinking, and was now thinking about the twins. Each of them had already confessed to her that they loved her, so it seemed that she should really love one of them, rather than allow herself to be hung up on someone who could never love her back. And it wasn't as if either of them were bad people, either. Maybe if she thought hard enough about the good things about them, she could make herself interested in one of them. Because if they were horrible, terrible people who were just going to hurt her, she could forgive herself for wanting Mori instead. But as it was, it just seemed selfish to refuse them both when the person that she really wanted to be with refused to be with her anyway. First, there was Kaoru. He was sweet, and considerate, and protective, and really, the epitome of a good person. But the reason not to be with him was obvious. Any possibility of a relationship of him had already been destroyed when he'd told her that Hikaru was more important to him than she was. This made her doubt that he had ever truly been in love with her. He could have easily mistaken his first interaction with a non-relative female that wasn't paying to see him, for love. And then, Hikaru, who was less like his brother than many believed, was passionate and devoted, which was flattering, if nothing else. She had told him that she didn't think of him that way, and he still hadn't given up. That had to score him some points. But even though when she thought about him as a friend, there was nothing wrong with him, when she thought about him in this context, Hikaru was self-serving, mischievous, and altogether mean.

Her thoughts were, as usual, interrupted.

"It's decided then!" What? What was decided? What was Tamaki on about now? This type of thing never turned out well. "We leave for Kyoto tomorrow morning!"

"WHAT?!" she demanded, standing up from her chair in such panic that it toppled over behind her. Hikaru and Kaoru had already fallen over dejectedly by the time she thought to look to them for explanation. Kyoya, on the other hand, seemed completely calm.

As she watched him nonchalantly explain to the King that they were still not planning on going anywhere for the weekend, the relief that his words granted her allowed her to return to her thinking (which was quite selfish of her, since her customers were still waiting for her). As he spoke, remaining so calm and contained despite the frustration and annoyance he must have been feeling, it occurred to her how similar he was to Mori, on so many different levels. To begin with the obvious, they were both tall men with black hair and gray eyes. Neither of them saw any reason to speak more than necessary, which was a refreshing contrast to Tamaki and the twins. But more importantly, they were both hiding. Kyoya hid behind his glasses and his notebook and his computer and his management position, because things like that came easy to him. Because one plus one always equaled two. In an organization like the host club, there were two priorities. The first one, of course, was keeping the customers happy. That was what Mori and Honey and Hikaru and Kaoru and Tamaki were good at. Because all you had to do was sit there and look pretty. Maybe you had to dress yourself up and put on a show, or put your face up really close to a girl's and say something that sounds romantic, but really, that was all it was. They obviously had the easy job. But if you asked Kyoya, she was sure he'd tell you the opposite. She suspected that he worked with the numbers because math was an exact science, and he wasn't comfortable putting himself out there to be criticized. You could tell Honey to grow up, or say that the Hitachiin brothers were nothing without their brotherly love, and Haruhi couldn't count how many times somebody had said something offensive to Tamaki, but nobody would ever be able to tell Kyoya that one plus one did not equal two. This was what he understood, so he avoided the rest. The same way, Mori hid behind his silence. Because he could never be judged on something he said if he didn't say anything, and nobody could argue with his opinions if he didn't voice them. They were so similar. That should have meant that she could be in love with Kyoya rather than Mori. Except that Kyoya was scary. Because of lineage and intelligence, he was powerful, and he knew it, and he used it against people. That was intimidating, and she had never been intimidated by Mori.

And she looked at the man that Kyoya was talking to, and saw him the way she'd always seen him. He was empty. He was insane, and overprotective, and neurotic, and he was completely empty. The only thing that anybody saw in him was exactly _what they saw_. His appearance seemed to be the only thing working for him. Tamaki was, admittedly, an attractive person, but there was nothing else to him. As he walked towards her, she found herself staring into his eyes. He really did have amazing eyes. They were beautiful, so wide and shining and violet like no other eyes she'd ever seen. But she didn't care that they were beautiful. They weren't gray.

"Haruhi! You must tell Mother that you want to go back to Kyoto!"

She looked straight at him, and she looked straight through him. It dawned on her that she shouldn't be there. Without a word, she opened the door and left the club room and abandoned her customers and her responsibilities and her friends. She didn't want to be there, where he could torture her with his silence yet speak louder than anybody else, and where people would talk to her and expect her to be able to answer, as if she wasn't being murdered slowly from the inside out. Maybe she could come back on Monday, after she had thought about what she could do now. Because she'd never taken the time to consider how to move forward. She'd been convinced ever since last weekend, that she was going to have to stand still and watch her life fly past her, because it wasn't worth moving on with it if he wasn't going to be a part of it.

But despite her will to figure out a way to live without him, she found herself drifting away from the seconds and the minutes and the hours, losing herself in a world where she could love somebody who would love her back, and Tamaki's eyes could be gray. Even as he held her shoulders and gazed so pleadingly into her eyes, she found it difficult to register his presence at all. Because it didn't matter if he was there or not. Because even if he was there, he was still empty. They all were. It was amazing how they could be so deep and intriguing and unique and interesting, and to her, still so irrelevant. Because it didn't matter whether they had good qualities or bad qualities, or how they felt about her or what they did. It didn't matter how smart Kyoya was. It didn't matter how beautiful Tamaki was. It didn't matter how much the twins loved her, and it didn't matter that Honey was steadfast and reliable. None of them mattered to her. Not the way he did.


	6. Gone

"Haruhi?"

But she didn't hear him. The door had already closed behind the female club member after her abrupt exit. Haruhi was already gone, and as far as Kaoru could tell, so was Mori.

Looking around the third music room, nobody seemed quite up to speed with what was going on. This was to be expected. It wasn't as if what had just happened was something that happened often.

Well, in fact, it was something that happened every day, right up until Haruhi up and walked out of the room without a word. That was definitely not a regular occurrence. Had she been so irritated by Tamaki's badgering that she decided that she wasn't going to take it anymore? Even if Tamaki was being unreasonably persistent with this whole Kyoto ordeal, it still seemed a little extreme for Haruhi to just leave. There was clearly something going on here beyond mere annoyance.

"Ta…" Honey seemed equally confused about the situation. "…kashi?"

Tamaki, on the other hand, seemed to be only beginning to process the fact that Haruhi was no longer in the room. "Ha… HARUHI! WHERE DID HARUHI GO? HARUHI! COME BACK TO DADDY!"

The faint grumble of something along the lines of 'you idiot' was barely audible amidst the King's incessant screaming. "Hikaru."

He did not respond. Hikaru turned wordlessly away from his twin and walked lightly towards the door. Kaoru was about to advise him not to follow her, but he had already stopped, in the middle of the doorway. "Hikaru…" he repeated.

"She left." Between any other people, these two simple words would be shallow and insignificant. But when Kaoru heard them out of his brother's mouth, both of the Hitachiins understood perfectly how important these two words were. They were simple, and seemingly generic, but the fact that Hikaru had chosen those particular words was more noteworthy than anybody else in the room- maybe anybody else in the world- could understand. Because he did not say "She's gone." He said "She left."

Her action was deliberate. This fact was of the utmost importance. Tamaki was standing right in front of her. He was looking her in the eye, and she was looking straight at him. He was talking to her. Yelling, even. There was no questioning that he wanted her attention.

And she had walked away. From him.

Kaoru looked over to Tamaki, who was screaming, then to his brother, who was thinking, and his lips curled into a smirk. "She'll come back." And even though he had clearly tried to avoid it, and it quickly faded after it appeared, Hikaru was wearing a similar expression.

--

"TAKASHI!"

His scream was somewhere between pain and elation. Because there was a fine line between the two.

When his cousin had first left the room, he had been anguished. He might have even cried a little. He had been so upset about Takashi leaving without saying goodbye, and leaving him behind, that he'd forgotten that this was a good thing. This was what he wanted to happen. This was why he had launched himself at Haruhi the other day. He had followed her.

That was… good, wasn't it? Because that meant that he was going to speak to Haruhi, and work out whatever it was that needed to be worked out between them. And then everything was going to go back to normal.

Right?

It was going to go back to the way it was. The way it was supposed to be. When Takashi and Mitsukuni and Haruhi could all sit together and eat cake without the element of discomfort in the silence across from him. This was the way that Honey needed it to be. It had to be the way it had always been. Because when it wasn't the way he knew it to be, he had to figure it out. Honey didn't like to figure things out. He liked to know how they worked.

Right now, he knew how his life worked. There were no problems in the mechanics of his life, and it was running smoothly. There was no need to change that. If a watch is working properly, you do not fiddle with it to see what happens. In doing so, you risk permanent damage upon a perfectly good watch that was working perfectly well and would have been perfectly fine without your senseless tinkering. This was the same was as Honey felt about his life. He liked the way it was now, so he had no real interest in making any drastic changes.

But if Takashi and Haruhi came back into the club room, would he be bringing inevitable change with him? Would the fact that he had followed her have an impact on the way he and his cousin lived their lives? Would it change their relationship?

No, of course not. He was reading too much into this. All that was going to change when they came back was that they would be talking to each other again. This was something that needed to happen.

--

Haruhi had left the room seemingly without provocation, without any sort of warning. She had stood up and walked out of the third music room, and nobody knew why she had done it. And Kyoya watched.

Mori was no longer in the room, but nobody had seen him leave. He had reacted so quickly to Haruhi's departure that nobody had even noticed him move, but now he was gone. And Kyoya watched.

Hikaru stood in the doorway. He and his brother were having one of their usual conversations in which only they could find the relevance. And Kyoya watched.

This had always been his role in the host club. He dealt with the finances, and made sure that Tamaki didn't murder the twins, and made sure the customers were happy, and made sure that Honey had all the cake he needed, but most importantly, he watched. He amused himself by knowing what was going on before anybody else figured it out, and watching things unfold. Because it wasn't his place to interfere. Listening in on a conversation and injecting yourself into the flow of words was rude, but eavesdropping was harmless, and entertaining.

Tamaki was now standing in front of him, blocking his vision of the rest of the room, screaming at him about how their daughter had run away from home, how they had to do something about it, how the unscrupulous twins must have had something to do with it, and the rest of his usual nonsense. And Kyoya watched. But he was only half listening.

This was another perk that came with not having to be a part of the conversations. This way, he didn't have to choose which one he was listening to. If he was going to participate in a conversation, he would have to give it his undivided attention and understand exactly what was going on, down to the most minute detail, and produce an opinion on it. But since he was only listening and not contributing, he could listen to all of the different conversations going on, without having to worry so much about not having exactly the right information.

Not that Kyoya would ever have the _wrong_ information.

No.

At the moment, there were three conversations happening. There was the conversation that Hikaru was having with Kaoru, that Kyoya wasn't even going to try to understand. It simply didn't make any sense. Their conversations rarely made any sense to anybody who wasn't them. And Kyoya had given up on trying to be the exception. Then there was the conversation that Tamaki was having with him, that was boringly easy to understand, and annoyingly common. It was the same kind of one-sided conversation the two had on a regular basis. This made it the least interesting of the three conversations. The third, of course, was the conversation that Honey was having with himself, but Kyoya had no hope of eavesdropping on this conversation, as none of the words were actually spoken out loud. But he did think he might have an inkling as to what the conversation was about.

But there was a fourth conversation, Kyoya realized. Because why else would Mori have left than to speak with Haruhi? Although, Mori didn't speak very much, and Haruhi had been pretty quiet today, too, so he couldn't help but wonder how that conversation was going to work out.

But, intriguingly, the conversation that had now caught his attention was the second. Because it was no-longer so one-sided. Because in the midst of his contemplation, he had lost track of all of the conversations, and had failed to realize that the third had ended, and the second had changed its point of situation. Tamaki had stopped yelling at him, and made a bee line towards the door, presumably with the intent of following Haruhi, as Mori had. But Honey, having cordially excused himself from his conversation with himself, had flipped from his chair and landed in front of the King, dry disapproval playing in his so often sparkling eyes. It seemed that he wasn't the only one that had been eavesdropping, but unlike him, Honey had rudely injected himself into the flow of words.

And Kyoya watched.

--

"GNYAAAH!"

Tamaki obediently jumped back from the tiny man who had done some sort of fancy judo somersault in order to impede his progress.

"I think that it would be in your best interest to stay here," came the eerily low voice of Dark Honey, a figure that even Tamaki wouldn't be blindly idiotic enough to contradict. And although he knew enough not to ask them while Honey was in this state, there were a number of questions running through his head at the speed of sound.

_What happened in Kyoto, and why did it make Haruhi so upset that she had to leave?_

_How come Mori-senpai got to follow her but I can't?_

_When will they come back? What will happen when they come back?_

_Where did they __**go**__, anyway?_

After one more glance at the terrifying sight of an upset Honey-senpai, he shuddered and ran off into his corner. By now, he had realized that there was something going on beyond everyone being annoyed that he kept pushing this whole Kyoto idea, and that Haruhi leaving wasn't just a matter of her being especially irritable today. Even he couldn't miss it when the rest of the club was making it so blatantly obvious.

Mori had followed Haruhi out the door. This was strange. He was normally the type to sort of stand next to Honey-senpai and make sure nobody died while everything was being sorted out. He wasn't the kind of person to take such an extreme action as actually following her out of the club room when she left. And Honey seemed to be okay with his leaving, to an extent. So it couldn't have been completely unplanned and random. There must have been some order to it, or somebody would have said something. He couldn't be the only one that thought this was out of character for him, could he?

Kyoya wasn't speaking, which was never a good sign. He always said at least a few words every now and then to make sure nobody forgot that he was still there, unless there was something bad happening. Because when something bad was happening, he stopped talking entirely and watched it hit the fan because he got some kind of sadistic pleasure from standing to the side of the fan while everybody else tried to deal with what had just happened.

Even the twins were having some sort of mental conversation with each other, which wasn't too far from normal for them, but it was usually the most obvious that they were doing it when it was about something important.

And Honey was being Dark Honey. Enough said.

There was clearly something going on, but nobody had yet thought to tell the host club's King what it was. Typical. So, seeing as how Honey had already eliminated the option of following them, Tamaki had nothing to do but sit down and wait it out.

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so this chapter is mostly only here to make sure you realize that I'm not completely forsaking the other hosts while I go on to follow Mori and Haruhi. You still have to wait a little while longer to find out what happens with them. Hehe.


	7. I Love You

"Haruhi."

He grabbed hold of her wrist and gripped it tightly enough that she couldn't break free, but loosely enough that she would have to struggle quite a bit to make it hurt her. He had left only a few seconds after her, so he was able to catch up relatively quickly. He tried to turn her around to face him, but she seemed determined not to look at him, so he quickly decided it would be better to let her have her way, and gave up his efforts.

"Haruhi." he repeated, letting go of her wrist and hoping that she wouldn't just run away.

"Why did you follow me?" Her voice was faint, but harsh, almost as if she was challenging him.

"Kyoya had to make the customers leave." Which was a little odd. Because he hadn't just sent Haruhi's customers away. He'd made _all _of them leave, even though that meant the club's profits would decrease substantially. Nobody would want to buy the merchandise if they didn't even get to see the hosts.

"No." Her voice was cracking now. He had to force himself to stay where he was while she started to cry. "I mean, why did _you_ follow me?"

"Haruhi…" She knew why. Why was she doing this to him? Didn't she realize that this was difficult for him?

"I didn't leave because of you, if that's what you think."

"…Ah." Why was she lying to him? Did she really think he would believe her?

"I just really don't want to go to Kyoto." It sounded almost like she was making herself laugh so that he wouldn't notice that she was crying. But of course, it didn't work. Because he could always tell when she was upset. She wasn't very good at hiding her emotions, either, but that was beside the point.

At first, he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Or at least, nothing that Mori could convince himself needed to be said. What some people didn't realize about him was that most of the time, he was quiet because he just didn't think there was any need to speak.

You see, most people fill the silence because they're afraid of what will happen if they just leave it be. Because words are much less scary when they're said out loud.

There's nothing more terrifying than not knowing what somebody is thinking about you. So people say what they're thinking out loud and hope that others will follow suit, because even if someone hates you, it's better to _know_ that they hate you. So they speak more than they need to, so that they don't give anybody the opportunity to try to guess what they're thinking. Or worse yet, give themselves that opportunity. But in their desperateness to kill the silence, they fail to understand its modest beauty, if only one takes the time to look for it.

Takashi was seven years old when he had begun to appreciate the beauty of the silence. A seven-year-old boy spends most of his time screaming and yelling and jumping and running and dancing about with the other seven-year-old boys who are screaming and yelling about, giving heart attacks to their parents and teachers and people around them who don't remember what it was like to be a seven-year-old boy, and who would punish these innocent children when their behaviour became what they deemed to be "out of control". Mori had never been one of the very most disruptive of the seven-year-old boys with whom he was associated, but he, as you must remember, still _was_ a seven-year-old boy at this point in his life.

It was during a moment of the aftermath of his "out of control" activities that he had experienced, for the first memorable instance, absolute silence. Because he, and all of the seven-year-old boys around him, had put their heads on their desks and not made a single noise, because this was the best way for them to calm down and get on with the lesson, or so she said.

And as he rested his head on his elbows, young Takashi Morinozuka could hear the soft 'tick-tock' of the clock, and the 'cla-clunk' of his teacher's uneven footsteps, and the 'fwshhh' of the breeze through the open window. Because absolute silence is not necessarily when there isn't any noise, you see. It's when the noise doesn't clutter the world around you or hinder your ability to appreciate your surroundings. And he heard his friends shuffling their feet in agitation, because they wanted to speak but knew that they couldn't, and for the first time, he realized that he knew what every seven-year-old boy in that classroom was thinking.

At first, this notion scared him, as I'm sure it would you if you were ever to experience such an epiphany. Because it simply did not make sense for him to know what they were thinking. Because they hadn't told him what they were thinking. But still, he knew. They were shuffling their feet, and this meant that they were getting fidgety from the century-long moments of not speaking. They were looking around at each other, clearly trying to determine who was the most upset with their teacher for not letting them talk to one another. They were looking at the clock every few seconds to see if their time was up, even though they knew that looking at the clock wasn't going to make it move any faster. This meant that they were allowing their hopefulness to cloud their judgment.

It was these little hints that were subtle only to those who didn't bother to look for them, that made people so interesting. And Mori would seek out the silence to try to find these hints, because he liked to be able to know what people were thinking just as if they were saying it to him, and still here the 'tick-tock' of the clock, and the 'fwshhh' of the breeze. Because these sounds were beautiful and unique to anyone who chose to think of them as such, and he had no intention of drowning them out with forced, unnecessary talk.

But right now, Haruhi was clearly in pain, and he couldn't tell what she was thinking. And she obviously had no intention of telling him what she was thinking. And for the first time in a long time, Mori was fearing the silence.

"I know that you're angry with me."

"Of course I'm not angry with you. Why would I be angry with you?"

Why was she asking him such difficult questions? It had been a long time since someone had asked him to explain himself. People normally accepted that he wasn't going to say anything to them, and they tailored their questions accordingly. They asked him things that could be answered with one syllable, or didn't need to be answered at all. He didn't often hear the word 'why' directed to him. It had been so long since he had been asked such a question, that he had forgotten how to answer it. He went stiff and remained silent, and couldn't help but wonder what she really expected his answer to be.

But of course, she had known that he wasn't going to say anything, hadn't she? She didn't really want him to answer her. She just wanted him to think about it. She wanted him to think about exactly what it was that had made her upset, because she wanted him to understand what he had done. But while she was saying these things that she knew would make him think about it, she must have made herself think about it more than she wanted to, because she was crying more freely now. And it was killing him.

"Haruhi, please stop." he begged, his desperation momentarily eclipsing his emotionless veneer. Because he couldn't stand here and watch her cry over him, as if on the inside, he wasn't crying his eyes out over her. He wasn't as strong as people thought he was.

She didn't stop, but she was trying. And Mori doubted that this was because he had told her to. "Senpai, why did you leave?" She still hadn't turned around to face him, and he wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want him to see her crying, or because she just didn't want to look at him. "I wish you would have stayed long enough to say that you don't love me. Because it's worse that you didn't think I even deserved a response." Her voice was getting louder and louder, and she was clearly getting less sad and more angry. And finally she spun around and looked straight at him, and he was almost thrown off by the way her eyes demanded an answer.

He stared down at her and impressed himself with how he managed to keep his calm consistent, but he must have opened his mouth three or four times before he finally decided what to say. Words had always been difficult for him to come up with, but it was important that it this very moment, he chose the right ones.

"I can't lie to you."

Then he turned around to go back to the club room, ignoring her inarticulate protests. Because once he was gone and she stood there by herself for a while, she would start to think about it. Because Haruhi was a thinker. She wasn't one to brush something off if she didn't quite get it. And he suspected that it wouldn't take her too much thinking to realize that she really didn't need any more explanation than that.

"Do not walk away from me again." The voice that snuck up on him from behind sounded almost like a growl. Haruhi didn't growl very often, and she'd certainly never growled at him before. "If you can't lie to me, then don't. But not lying and telling the truth are different things, Mori-senpai. If you love me, fine. If you don't, I might be able to live with it… But you need to turn around and give me a straight answer because I will never be okay with not knowing."

Mori had been stiff with fear since she had mentioned telling the truth. He did not talk, if he could help it. He did not openly demonstrate his feelings, if he could help it. And she was asking him to talk about his feelings, and it was just not a good situation for him. But he turned around anyway, because they both knew that she deserved an answer.

"Mori-senpai, do you love me?"

"Ah."

He had repeated that syllable so many times throughout his life, but somehow, saying it now was the hardest thing he'd ever done. But the worst part was that all the effort he put into getting that one word out didn't seem to pay off the way he would have liked it to. Because now, hearing him say that word wasn't going to make Haruhi rush into his arms from across the hallway. Maybe if he'd said it the first time, he would have gotten that kind of a reaction, but "Yes, I love you" wasn't going to be good enough for her anymore. Not after all that. Because she wasn't going to be satisfied until she understood what the last week had all been about. Which meant that he was going to be hearing the word "why" more than he ever thought he should have to hear it, in the next few minutes.

"So why didn't you tell me that before?"

One.

"I… was afraid."

"Why?"

Two.

Mori took a deep breath. "Because I love you."

"Why did th-" But he took another loud, deep breath to cut her off. She was never going to understand what had happened, because he was never going to be able to figure out how to explain it. And even if he did, she still wouldn't understand. He would think she was being an idiot. He probably was being an idiot. But he still believed in why he hadn't admitted his feelings for her from the very beginning. And he was trying really hard not to change his mind, but she wasn't exactly making it easy for him.

She sighed, and started to walk towards him. "I guess it doesn't matter," she muttered. And Mori said nothing. She continued to walk towards him, until they were no more than a foot apart.

"Haru-" And that was when it happened. Her arms locked around him and he raised his up into the air as if he was afraid to touch her. She was hugging him, but he was relatively sure that they had been in an awkward situation not too long ago. He hesitantly lowered his arms and placed his hands awkwardly on her back.

"Haruhi." And she pulled away.

"Mori-senpai, I don't think I'll ever understand what's going on with you." She smiled softly. "But maybe I won't have to."

"Ah…"

She walked past him and towards the club room, leaving him to turn around and stare at her in confusion. She didn't look back. She just kept walking, so he followed her, and then he passed her, and walked in before she did.

"Mori-senpai! Did you speak to her? Is she angry? What did she say to you?" Tamaki pounced on him the second the door opened, frantically asking questions in the hopes that one of them would illicit a positive response. Hikaru and Kaoru looked equally (but not quite as vocally) interested to hear about his encounter with Haruhi in the hallway.

"She is coming."

"Takashi! I saved you your cake!" He turned his head towards the table where he had been sitting with his cousin, and sure enough, the freshly-cut slice of cake that he had left there when he went to follow Haruhi, was still intact, surrounded by plates adorned with nothing more than crumbs, since Honey had made short work of the rest of the cake in his absence. "I ate the rest, but I left yours because I thought you might want to eat it when you got back!" he exclaimed, grinning.

"Ah." And Mori sat down across from Honey. But the remainder of the host club's time in the third music room went by as it always did, and Mori did not so much as nibble at his cake.

--

"Ah, Haru-chan!" squealed Honey as Haruhi stepped back into the third music room. "Are you feeling less upset now?"

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm feeling a little better now. Thanks, Honey-senpai."

"HARUHI!" Tamaki rushed towards her and grabbed her hands, bombarding her with questions and apologies, and she tried to keep track of all of it as Hikaru and Kaoru's voices joined his. And as she was assuring everyone that she was okay, and hadn't left them forever, she couldn't help but steal a glance at Mori. She wasn't sure exactly where they stood at the moment, but for now, maybe that was okay.

After all the anticipation and wondering, and overwhelming feelings leading up to now, it had finally ended, not with a bang, as she had hoped it would. But what surprised her was that she was okay with that. Because a bang would be loud and obnoxious. And what had happened was more calm and less disturbing than a bang, but it wasn't absolute silence. This was something that she had to remind herself of.

She looked at Mori, and she smiled. Because it was over. All the crying and sulking and hating him and hating herself, was over, even though she knew it would still be a long time before she could consider her relationship with him anything in the neighbourhood of normal. There was still a long road ahead of her, but as far as she was concerned, her world had ended. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

**A/N: **Please note that even though I've pretty much wrapped up the story, IT IS NOT COMPLETELY OVER YET. There will still be an epilogue, which will hopefully be up within the week. So don't go running off just yet, okay kiddies?


	8. Epilogue: Unopened Letter to the World

I'm writing you this because I want you to understand that I miss you. It's been a long time since we've seen each other. Too long. And I want to see you again, but I know you're busy. I understand. Please know that I understand. But it still hurts me how much I miss you, even when you're standing right in front of me.

Do you remember when it was just you and me? Before Tamaki, before the Host Club. Before Haruhi. Do you remember that, Takashi? Because I do. I remember when we could walk towards and away from each other whenever we wanted to, and I didn't have to worry that you wouldn't be able to find your way back to me. I miss those times. But when we joined the Host Club, I knew that those times were over. And I was okay, because you were still going to be with me every step of the way.

But your legs are longer than mine, Takashi, and sometimes you don't realize that you're taking bigger steps.

Maybe you forgot, but you didn't always eat cake. I've always been able to see you sometimes when you didn't know I was looking, and not one time did I see you eat anything sweet. So I shared my cakes with you. Maybe you didn't notice, but I'd never shared my cake with anybody before. And after that, I _always_ shared with you.

And then Haruhi came along, and I saw the way you looked at her. I saw it from the very beginning. And it scared me. But I shared my cake with her, too, because I thought that I could still be okay if it was the three of us rather than the two of us. And nobody else noticed, but you've been eating less and less cake every day ever since we met her. I'm not sure if you even noticed, yourself. But I did.

And that day that she walked out of the club room, you stood up and left your cake on the table to go after her. But even then, Takashi, I was okay. Even though it hurt me that you would rather follow her than eat cake with me, I was okay. I didn't run after you, and I didn't try to stop you, because I understood that you had to do what you had to do. Even then, I was okay, because even though you left your cake, it was still waiting for you when you came back. I would never close that door, Takashi. Because even though you keep walking away from me, you have to know that I'm doing everything I can to make it easy for you to find your way back. I'm short and sometimes you can't see me because there's something in the way, but I'll always be there, if you ever decide to try to find me again.

But then you came back, and you knew that your cake was waiting for you. We had waited so patiently, the cake and I, for you to come back so you could eat it with me, but you didn't even pick up your fork one time all afternoon. And that was when it really started to get to me. You knew where I was. There was nothing in your way. The door was open. And you only had to take a few short steps to get to me, but you stood right where you were because you liked it better. I know that you will never look at me the way you look at her, Takashi. I've known that all along. But couldn't you at least do me the favour of looking at me at all?

I miss you, Takashi. I miss you, and I want you to know that I'm not okay. I was okay for a really long time, even when most people wouldn't have been okay. I made myself be okay because I knew that this was what was best for you, but everybody has their limit, and I pushed mine just a little too far, because I thought that it would mean it could still be the three of us. But I stopped being okay when I realized that no matter what I do, you're never going to come back to me. I always knew that one day you were going to start walking towards her, but I was still okay then, because I didn't realize that that would take you so far away from me. But who am I kidding, Takashi? It was never supposed to be the three of us.

And I understand that, Takashi. Please, no matter how critical I may seem, know that I understand. But it still hurts me how much I miss you, even when you're standing right in front of me. Because I miss the days when you would take smaller steps on purpose so that you wouldn't get too far ahead, and the days when there was nothing you would rather do than eat cake with me. But the Takashi that spent those days with me left the club room that day and didn't come back, and I miss him. So if you ever see him around, please make sure to tell him that I miss him. And I want to see him again, because he was never too busy for me. But if you don't know where he is and can't find him to pass on my message, I understand. Please know that I understand.


End file.
